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According to Gordon: Wagner College lacrosse coach Matt Poskay is poster boy for determination

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Wagner College men's lacrosse coach and cancer survivor Matt Poskay, a member of two NCAA championship teams at the University of Virginia, is still playing his sport professionally.ÃÂ ÃÂ
(Photo courtesy of Wagner College)

Who is the most successful Staten Island athlete currently playing his or her sport, a pro with ties to the borough who is an impact performer?

Is it Jason Marquis, the presently rehabbing right-hander with the long and successful big-league career and 121 MLB victories?

Or Steve Gregory, the hard-hitting safety out of Curtis High School who presently chases down running backs and receivers for the New England Patriots?

Or, is it former All-America and present all-league player Matt Poskay?

Who’s Matt Poskay, you ask?

You’re not alone with that question.

It would be the response of almost any Staten Islander on hearing the name of Wagner College’s 29-year-old men’s lacrosse coach.

But Poskay is just about as big a name as there is in a growing sport that has been gaining a foothold around here.

RESULTS-ORIENTED

And Island sports fans should learn something about the New Jersey native who came to Grymes Hill a couple of years back to take over a basically new, consistently underfunded, persistently stumbling program with the belief that he can — and will — turn things around.

Will a change in program fortunes actually occur?

Well, people who know Matt Poskay tend not to doubt him. He’s the type who gets results, and not just in the world of sports.

Here’s the resume:

All-state in football and lacrosse in suburban Clark, N.J., then a two-time University of Virginia All America on a team that won not one, but two, national lacrosse titles.

Poskay graduated from Virginia with a dual major in commerce and management and marketing.

And two weeks after receiving his diploma on The Lawn Thomas Jefferson had constructed more than 200 years ago, he was playing for the Boston Cannons in Major League Lacrosse.

A square-jawed 6-footer with broad shoulders, Poskay’s been the MLL’s Player of the Year, its MVP, and an all-star a couple of times over.

In the world of lacrosse, he’s a major player with name recognition and an equipment endorsement deal.

And, after eight seasons as a pro (he’s the Cannons’ all-time goal leader), he’s still at it, catching Friday afternoon shuttles to Boston in-season, where he cabs from Logan International straight to practice. Saturday is a morning walk-through, 7 p.m. game and plenty of time sitting around in a hotel room.

Sunday morning he’s back on a flight and Monday back to work.

“Another year or two, maybe” he smiles of the life of constant motion. “The schedule makes it tough on recruiting.”

BIG TASK

Still, the look in Poskay’s eyes tells you he could be persuaded to stick around longer.

And as for handling the Wagner job, a monumental undertaking for an untried Division I head coach?

“We’re going to build a culture,” he declared a few days ago. “We’re close, and getting closer.”

That’s a mouthful of optimism for a guy who is 2-25 over two seasons, including five one-goal losses.

But four years ago, at the beginning of another MLL season, Poskay was sitting in the office of New Jersey urologist Dr. Kenneth Ring and being told he had testicular cancer.

It’s not the type of message you can pretty-up to a 25-year-old.

“He just said it flat out,” recalled Poskay. “This is what you have, and this is what we’re going to do.”

Poskay appreciated the direct approach. The treatment would begin immediately, he was told.

It would consist, in part, of radiation five times each week. Early in the morning from Monday to Friday for four weeks Poskay would drive from his Clark home to a facility at Overlook Hospital where he’d receive the treatments.

“It would beat you up,” he admits. “I’d get real tired, so I started trying to find ways to save my energy.”

Why bother with the effort, you’re wondering? Why not just lay low, and take it as easy as you can?

Well, there was a reason.

“I still wanted to play that season,” Poskay begins to explain, no longer surprised by the look of eye-popping shock on the faces of those who hear his story.

So on Fridays, following five daily radiation treatments for his cancer, Poskay would marshal his determination and head for Boston and one more game.

“I wasn’t great,” he says now of playing a professional sport in a condition that would have most of us flat on our backs.

As if, given the heroic effort, the results even mattered.

GOOD NEWS

Months later, on a return visit to his doctor’s office, he received news he’d been waiting for.

“You’re cured,” he was told. “Checkups every month for a while, then every three months, but the cancer is gone.”

Good thing too, because the next MLL season was about to begin by then.

And if Poskay could play while actively battling the disease, what would he be like once it was gone?

The answer was simple: He’d be the best.

Poskay celebrated his health by capturing Major League Lacrosse Player of the Year honors. The playing comeback — not to mention his far more important one — is part of what caught Walt Hameline’s attention when he was looking for someone to take over a program which had gone a miserable 2-86 over a several-year stretch.

“Tells you what kind of person he is,” said the Seahawk athletic director.

Given that personal history, it’s not a surprise that Poskay has no intention of allowing the Seahawks to surrender in the face of a huge building challenge.

“I want kids to be able to feel good about themselves,” he says of his players. “I think we already made some major steps recruiting-wise for this year and next year. But it’s a process, the good thing being our players are smart enough to understand what that means.”

What it doesn’t mean, we already know, is to accept the situation as is.